I want you to know: Whatever it is that you’re struggling with, you’re not alone.

I’ll tell you right now: I’ve got some wounds that still hurt pretty badly. I get it.

*

I learned something recently from a mentor of mine, and it’s helped me tremendously, and I want to share it with you.

It’s called the Doctrine of 100-Percent Responsibility.

Here’s how it works:

It says that every person is 100% responsible for his or her own behavior – no more, and no less.

Unfortunately, when we have conflict in our relationships, we have a tendency to do one of two things:

--Either: because we feel guilty, we accept more than our 100% share of responsibility – and take responsibility for the other person’s behavior, in addition to our own.

--Or, because we can be self-righteousness and “stiff-necked,” as the Torah puts it, we refuse to admit any fault, and instead we blame our own bad behavior on them.

Both of these tendencies are mistaken.

We can and must take exactly 100% responsibility for our own behavior – no more, and no less.

--So, if we’ve been unkind to someone, we’re 100% responsible for that – even if they’ve been unkind to us, too.

--If we’ve spoken harshly to them or about them, we’re 100% responsible for that – even if what we said is true.

--If we’ve lost our temper and lashed out in anger, we’re 100% responsible for that – even if we feel they drove us to it.

Whatever they may have done, they are responsible for it.

But it’s no justification for our failure to be our highest self.

We are 100% responsible for our own behavior, no excuses. Period.

*

Simple as it sounds – boy, is it hard to get there.

It’s natural to think of it in black-and-white terms, and say: “They’re clearly in the wrong, and I’m clearly in the right.”

“And yeah, maybe I’ve done some things I shouldn’t have. But seriously? That’s because of what they did to me! And what they did is much worse!”

And we hold to that line – because it feels like if we were to concede any fault on our own part, it would somehow cause our story to crack, and undermine our legitimate feelings of being wronged, and mean that they aren’t as guilty as we say they are.

But of course, that’s not the case. It is possible to hold two truths at the same time:

--It can be completely true that they behaved horribly toward us and wounded us terribly;

--And, at the same time, it can be completely true that we said and did things that caused them pain, too.

And neither of these truths takes anything away from the other. Because both are true; both are reality.

And once we see that, we have to own it. We have to own our transgressions, and do what God demands of us when we’ve transgressed:

And that’s t’shuvah: atonement.

“For sins committed by one human being against another, the Day of Atonement does not atone until the one who acted wrongly has appeased the person he wronged.”

That means we have to reach out to the other person, and say “I’m sorry.”

Maybe we write a letter, maybe it’s a phone call, or a face-to-face conversation.

But one way or another, we have to do it. There’s just no way around it.

* * *

This isn’t just a sermon for me.

As I said, I’ve got wounds. And they’re fresh, and they’re raw – just like yours.

And I’m not telling you to do something I haven’t done myself. Recently.

I know it isn’t easy. In fact, it’s really, really hard.

But doing t’shuvah is a mitzvah, a religious obligation – and it’s the right thing to do.

I’ve struggled with this mightily. I’ve studied it intently, and I’ve prayed about it intently.

And here’s the approach I’ve come up with to that letter we need to write, or that conversation we need to have.

Three principles:

* * *

First: Acknowledge the good in the other person.

Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav teaches that there’s good in every single person, even the worst people, because we’re all created in the image of God.

The problem is: when someone has hurt us, it’s hard to see the good in them. Or, maybe more to the point, it’s hard to remember the good that’s in them.

After all, most of the time, the conflicts we have are with people who are close to us, people we care about – people who, at some point in the past, we liked, or loved.

So it’s a powerful spiritual practice to remind ourselves of the good – their good qualities, the good times we’ve shared, the good things they’ve done for us.

The good is there, in them; we just may not want to acknowledge it.

But we need to acknowledge it anyway. And we have to do it straight-up, and with no qualifications.

Tell them: “You’ve been a good friend, or a good parent, or a good child, or a good sister or brother to me in the past.”

And tell them how. And thank them for it.

Because it’s true.

Sadly, we tend to hold on so tightly to the negative that we lose our grip on the positive.

But being honest about the good in them is important, because it helps us see the full picture of who they are, and we may have a little less difficulty taking responsibility for the wrongs we’ve done to them.

* * *

The second principle is to confess the sins we’ve committed against them.

Maimonides says confession is the essence of t’shuvah – that even if we’ve admitted our sins to ourselves and to God privately, we still haven’t made t’shuvah until we’ve confessed our transgressions directly to the person we’ve wronged.

And that’s painful to do.

Probably because speaking our sins aloud or putting them in writing makes them feel real in a way they just don’t if we only think about them internally.

And that’s the point.

Genuine t’shuvah requires us to really feel and internalize the wrongs we’ve done – and we can’t do that unless we confess them. Outwardly and specifically.

So we have to dig deeply, and be completely honest with ourselves about how we’ve behaved in the whole conflict.

And when we do, we’ll know what we’ve done wrong…

And we won’t feel at peace until we confess it, and take 100% responsibility for our actions, and say, “I’m sorry.”

About the Author

Rabbi Stoller grew up in Houston, TX, and attended The University of Texas where he received a Bachelor of Business Administration in Honors Business Program & Finance in 1996. After graduation, he first worked as a Political Consultant and Hill Consultants in Houston and then serviced as Press Secretary for U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald (IL), Washington, DC. Rabbi Stoller has stated, “Seven years in politics is enough to drive you to God. That is my short explanation for why I left my career as a U.S. Senate press secretary to become a rabbi – although, in truth, there is a lot more to the story. While politics can certainly be disillusioning, I see my journey from the Capitol to the rabbinate as a personal spiritual evolution toward a fuller, more authentic version of myself, a deeper engagement with things that really matter, and the realization of my destiny to be a teacher and spiritual guide to others.”

Rabbi Stoller was previously the associate rabbi at Congregation B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim (BJBE), Deerfield, IL. He served at BJBE since 2008 when he was ordained as a rabbi from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, OH, where he is currently also a Ph.D. Candidate in Rabbinics.

Rabbi Stoller is married to Karen Flayhart and they have two children, Lindsay (7) and Zachary (3). For enjoyment, Rabbi Stoller likes cycling and is learning to play ukulele with his daughter along with learning to read German.